"Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green - Janissaries 3 - Storms of Victory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

answer to his dilemma. Only the baleful glare of the Demon StarтАФwhich did
give enough light to make the searching easier, for all that its growing power
over the nights on Tran meant that the Time was coming nearer....
"I think it would be well if I turned out the rest of my men-at-arms who are fit
for duty," Morrone said. "AlsoтАФdo you know who is quartered in this
house?"
"Am I a clerk?" Mason said, but he was laughing, and turned to one of his
Guardsmen, who produced a paper.
It was a list. Morrone took a mild pleasure in seeing that even starmen did not
tax their memories with details more fit for clerks and scribes than for
warriors.
"Nobody seems to be assigned to it," Mason concluded. "But the one to the
left is for Councilor Daettan of Dirstvaal, who's Ambassador from Lord
Gengrich. The one to the right is for the Lady Gwen, Lord Warner, and the
rest of the University people. The one across the street is for Fabricius Max-
imus Valens, Marselius Caesar's ambassador, but he hasn't arrived yet. Too
bad about that; I'd have liked to have seen these bastards take on some
legionaries."
"Do you doubt the valor of the men of Drantos?"
"Not at all. It's just that if a legionary had been killed, we could have found
more reliable troops for the searching parties without having to spread the
word of what happened."
"Indeed." Lord Mason sounded sincere and spoke good sense, and there was
no helping the starmen's fondness for the Romans. The other Rome on the
starmen's home worldтАФonce our ancestors' home world, the starmen say!тАФ
had passed down much wisdom to the starmen, particularly in matters of war
and statecraft. It was still just as well that Publius Caesar, the heir of Rome,
saw the starmen as a new kind of "barbarian" and openly distrusted them; if
starmen and Romans made an alliance only the gods could help Drantos.
"Okay, let's get at it," Mason said. "You take charge here. Post some guards.
Maybe they killed that sentry to keep him from seeing something. Make sure
there's men enough to see anything the sentry would. Then search this place
as best you can."
"And you?"
"I'll wait for the duty squad, then somebody's got to tell Lord Rick and the
King. Want that job?"
"No. No, the arrangement is satisfactory. Armsman Garrakos, take three
companions and torches to search this house. The rest of you, move to
surround it." Morrone shuddered. "I like it not, this skulking about in the dark.
It makes me feel like an assassin. There can be no honor in it."
"Now there's something we can agree on," Mason said. "But there's not much
more in letting the Wanax's guests be slaughtered on the night before his
wedding. Steady up, my Lord. I'll be back when I can come."
Morrone sent off a messenger for his men. "Now, Garrakos. Let us go see
what we find."
The autumn night was chilly even though the wind had died, but Morrone felt
himself sweating under his mail and arming doublet as he had not since the
Battle of the Hooey River. "I like it not," he muttered to himself. "An evil
omen. I like it not."
Art Mason unbuttoned the flap of his shoulder holster and wished that the